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Journal of Markets & Morality 4, no. 2 (Fall 2001), 217-239 Copyright © 2001 Center for Economic Personalism The Ethical Foundation of the Market Economy: A Reflection on Economic Personalism in the Thought of Luigi Sturzo Flavio Felice Resident Scholar Centro Internazionale Studi Sturziani Rome, Italy Luigi Sturzo (1871-1959)—Sicilian priest, intellectual, and founder of the Italian Popular Party—produced a corpus of serious reflection on the moral foundation of the free economy. My intent here is to discuss four theoretical foundations that enable a link to be developed between classical liberalism, the market economy, and Catholic social thought: methodological personalism; the inter- dependence of moral, political, economic, and cultural liberty; the separation of powers; and the creative subjectivity of the human person. Each of these ele- ments are found in the thought of Luigi Sturzo and John Paul II, who, in my view, contribute substantially to the development of economic personalism. “What is liberalism? It is ‘humanistic,’ which means: It starts from the premise that the nature of man is capable of good and that it fulfills itself in ‘community,’ that his destination stretches beyond his material exist- ence, and that we are debtors in respect of every individual, as man in his unicity, that forbids us to lower him to simply a means. It is therefore individualistic, or, if one prefers, personalistic.” —Wilhelm Röpke “The basis of natural justice, or of natural rights, can be fixed in the coex- istence of rights and the reciprocity of duties; and this transports the subjective value of rights and obligations of the human personality into its objective social order…. The personality of man, as far as it is ratio- nal, is not only the subject of rights but the source of rights, and neither society nor the State is the source of rights, as some think.” —Luigi Sturzo Introduction The passages quoted above serve to make immediate the point of view that we intend to make our own in reflecting on the moral basis of the free market. Thanks to the stimulus from these two authors, we have already begun to think about the concrete possibility of reconciling some typical aspects of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church with certain characteristic aspects of that par- ticular strand of modern liberalism represented by the Austrian School, also 217 218 The Ethical Foundation of the Market Economy Markets & Morality 219 called “classic” or “Anglo-American.” We will proceed in this way, dedicating classical liberalism: empirical, asystematic, and anti-utopian. It is traceable to the particular attention to the reflections of an Italian thinker, the Sicilian priest “Old Whig” English political tradition, to English and Scottish moral philoso- and founder of the Italian Popular Party, Luigi Sturzo (1871-1959). Sociologist phy of the eighteenth century and to that of America, in particular, the version and philosopher, he was able, at the end of the last century, to inaugurate a new found in the Federalist Papers. It attributes to the spontaneous order of civil stage of Catholic political action: popolarismo.1 In 1926, on account of his anti- society the defense and promotion of liberty: “Experience must be our only fascism, he was forced to leave Italy and so to begin a long, sad, but providen- guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered … the odd tial exile that he led for twenty years: first in France, then in England, and finally and, in the eye of those who are governed by reason, the absurd mode of trial in the United States. by Jury. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given It is my intention to discuss some of the ethical problems that attach to sanction to them. This is then our guide.”3 On the other hand, we have the political and economic institutions—for example, the market and competi- continental tradition, in particular, the French style of liberalism: rationalist, tion—following the work of this interpreter of Christian social thought, mak- utilitarian, and materialistic. It recognizes one relevant intentional function for ing him converse with some of the more relevant exponents of classical liberal public power.4 Wishing to make a sufficiently clear distinction, though neces- thought. sarily one not including all the exceptions, we have to consider the two streams One relevant bit of support for the task before us comes from Friedrich von in their relatively pure forms, as they appeared in the eighteenth and nineteenth Hayek. The Austrian economist, going over the salient “stops,” on the long centuries. The so-called British style is represented in a special way by the Scot- “march” of liberal thought in the history of humanity, in the footsteps of Lord tish moral philosophers such as David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, Acton, called Aquinas “the first Whig”—the founder of the party of liberty. He as well as by the French thinkers Montesquieu and Tocqueville, not to mention also referred to Nicholas of Cusa and Bartolus of Sassoferrato at the beginning the contemporaneous English thinkers, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, and Wil- of his investigation into the first political schools that formulated the principle liam Paley, drawing from the established tradition of common law. On the op- of the rule of law and of self-governing communities. (He was referring to the posite side, we have the tradition of the French Enlightenment, permeated with project of civil society or civic republicanism, dear to the Founding Fathers of Cartesian rationalism and guided by the Encyclopedists, by the physiocrats, by the United States and springing substantially from the Christian principle of Rousseau, and by Condorcet. The differences have been identified by Talmon subsidiarity—civitas sibi princeps). “But in some respects Lord Acton was not who, undertaking his study of the origins of totalitarian democracy, thus sum- being altogether paradoxical when he described Thomas Aquinas as the first marizes the two versions of modern liberalism: “One finds the essence of free- Whig [and] a fuller account (of the history of liberalism) would have to give dom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion; the other believes it to be special attention to Nicolas of Cusa in the thirteenth century and Bartolus in realized only in the pursuing and attainment of an absolute collective purpose the fourteenth century, who carried on the tradition.”2 … one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the other for doctrinaire deliberateness; one for trial and error procedure, the other for an enforced solely Four Theoretical Foundations valid pattern.”5 One Line of Demarcation Between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism Before delving into an analysis of those principles that, in my view, could Building a New Relationship reveal some theoretical foundations supporting the morality of the free-mar- The point of departure from which to start this discussion is found in Hayek’s ket economy, let us stop and reflect briefly on the possibility of setting up a inaugural discourse given on the occasion of the first meeting of the Mont productive debate with that component of liberalism that, renouncing the Pelerin Society in 1947. He confronted the tendency to perpetuate the contrast excesses of rationalism, utilitarianism, and materialism, has shown the conti- between those who defend liberty on a secular basis and those who defend it in guity of its own positions with those typical of Western thought, particularly religious terms. “It is this intolerant and fierce rationalism that is mainly with the Judeo-Christian tradition. On this matter, it is indispensable to under- responsible for the gulf which, particularly on the Continent, has often driven line the profound line of demarcation between the two principal strands of religious people from the liberal movement…. I am convinced that unless this modern liberalism. On one side we have the British tradition that we call breach between true liberal and religious convictions can be healed, there is 218 The Ethical Foundation of the Market Economy Markets & Morality 219 called “classic” or “Anglo-American.” We will proceed in this way, dedicating classical liberalism: empirical, asystematic, and anti-utopian. It is traceable to the particular attention to the reflections of an Italian thinker, the Sicilian priest “Old Whig” English political tradition, to English and Scottish moral philoso- and founder of the Italian Popular Party, Luigi Sturzo (1871-1959). Sociologist phy of the eighteenth century and to that of America, in particular, the version and philosopher, he was able, at the end of the last century, to inaugurate a new found in the Federalist Papers. It attributes to the spontaneous order of civil stage of Catholic political action: popolarismo.1 In 1926, on account of his anti- society the defense and promotion of liberty: “Experience must be our only fascism, he was forced to leave Italy and so to begin a long, sad, but providen- guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not Reason that discovered … the odd tial exile that he led for twenty years: first in France, then in England, and finally and, in the eye of those who are governed by reason, the absurd mode of trial in the United States. by Jury. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given It is my intention to discuss some of the ethical problems that attach to sanction to them. This is then our guide.”3 On the other hand, we have the political and economic institutions—for example, the market and competi- continental tradition, in particular, the French style of liberalism: rationalist, tion—following the work of this interpreter of Christian social thought, mak- utilitarian, and materialistic. It recognizes one relevant intentional function for ing him converse with some of the more relevant exponents of classical liberal public power.4 Wishing to make a sufficiently clear distinction, though neces- thought.

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